Parts of a Plant We Eat Activity

Children are always surprised to find out that vegetables come from so many different parts of a plant. They may be the stem, the roots, or the leaves of a plant. Some of the vegetables we eat are actually the seeds of the plant. While some of the foods we call vegetables aren’t vegetables at all, the are really the fruit of the plant.

Last year I made a gardening board and some vegetables for an activity on the amazing blog Totschooling called Where do Vegetables Grow? It looked at where vegetables grow and focused on the positional words above and below. Well, I still have all of its components and thought it would be fun to find a new way to use them. This activity looks at just want part of the plant each food is and whether it is really a fruit. Let me share with you each of the foods focused on in the activity and where it grows.

• Peas- Seeds
• Asparagus- Stem
• Cucumber- Fruit
• Bean- Seeds
• Corn- Seeds
• Tomato- Fruit
• Onion- Root
• Radish-Root
• Carrot- Root

I bet you weren’t surprised by the tomato, but did the cucumber surprise you. There are probably a number of you that haven’t really thought about whether either of these are fruit or not. They are fruit due to the fact that they house the seeds of a plant.

How We Explored Parts of a Plant

I created a soil, ground, sky board by attaching burlap to a piece of cardboard. We used that as our work space. We started by sorting the felt vegetables I made by where they grew. (Just like the above and below lesson.) Then we talked about plant parts they looked like. That lead to a discussion of whether it looked like what we thought a root or stem or seed or fruit looked like. It was important to make connection between what was already known or understood and the new information that was being shared.

You may be thinking that you like this activity, but you don’t have time to create a set of felt vegetables. Well, you don’t have to! I am making the set of printable vegetable learning cards I made for Totschooling available to you. They are labeled pictures of the felt vegetable I made.

You will find more science experiments like this simple pendulum experiment on my Early Learning Science board on Pinterest.  Please take moment to check them out.